Cyril Dabydeen

His work has appeared in over 60 literary mags and anthologies, most recently in My Undiscovered Country: Short Stories

Cyril Dabydeen’s recent books include: My Undiscovered Country: Short Stories (Mosaic Press, Oakville), God’s Spider/poetry (Peepal Tree Press, UK), My Multi-Ethnic Friends and Other Stories (Guernica Editions, Toronto), and the anthology Beyond Sangre Grande: Caribbean Writing Today (Tsar/Mawenzi House, Toronto). Previous books include: Jogging in Havana (1992), Black Jesus and Other Stories (1996), Berbice Crossing (1997), My Brahmin Days (2000), North of the Equator (2001), Play a Song Somebody: New and Selected Short Stories (2003), Imaginary Origins: New and Selected Poems (2005), the novel Drums of My Flesh, 2007 (nominated for the IMPAC/Dublin Prize; short-listed finalist for the City of Ottawa book prize, and winner of the Guyana Prize for best fiction).

Cyril’s work has appeared in over 60 literary mags and anthologies (e.g, The Critical Quarterly, The Warwick Review, Kunapipi, Fiction International, Wasafiri, Planet: The Welsh Internationalist, World Literature Today, The Literary Review, The Fiddlehead, Prism International, The Canadian Fiction Magazine, The Queen's Quarterly, Books in Canada, Canadian Literature, The Globe and Mail/Christmas issue/1991; and in the Oxford, Penguin and Heinemann Books of Caribbean Verse and Fiction). He’s a former Poet Laureate of Ottawa (1984-87). He has taught Creative Writing for many years at the University of Ottawa. He was born in Guyana, S America, where he won the Sandbach Parker Gold Medal for poetry at an early age.

He has done over 300 readings internationally--across Canada, USA, UK/Europe, the Caribbean (Jamaica, Trinidad, St Lucia, Cuba), and Asia. He is a former member of the League of Canadian Poets and served on its Membership and International Affairs Committees. He holds post-graduate degrees from Queen’s University; he wrote an MA thesis on American poet Sylvia Plath. He twice adjudicated for the Governor General’s Award (Poetry) and the USA Neustadt Prize for Literature (UOklahoma).